How many years ago was that phone call
After Zeng Li got up, he brushed his teeth while reminiscing in front of the mirror.
five years ago
Because of Ai Jingchu, she found Yu Yi. But after breaking up with Yu Yi, she met Ai Jingchu in real life. It wasn't just his voice, but he was standing in front of her, saying to her coldly in the library: "Fortunately, it wasn't sprayed on your face."
However, no matter how others evaluate Ai Jingchu, no matter how tough and cold his outer shell may appear, Zeng Li always feels that there must be a soft spot in his heart.
That day at the foot of Dongshan Mountain, the old man guarding the gate reminded her to be wary of others, but she knew without a doubt that he was a good man.
She treated a strange girl with such kindness. Even if it wasn't for him, even if it was so humble and embarrassing, she was respected by him.
From morning to noon, Zeng Li was absent-minded while working, only thinking about what happened yesterday. She had caused a big disaster for Ai Jingchu, and she didn't know whether the people in the car called the police and whether they went to trouble him afterwards.
Zeng Li wanted to call him to ask, but when he thought of Ma Yiyi's prediction, he held back.
During the lunch break, she went out to eat and happened to see "Today's Statement" being broadcast on the small TV in the restaurant. It was saying that in a certain city, a BMW hit someone on the highway and then fled the scene. The police checked all the auto repair shops one by one, and finally found a clue and caught the perpetrator.
Zeng Li became more and more frightened by this case. She had never done anything bad since she was a child. She would worry and be scared even if she didn't bring her homework to school the next day or forgot to sweep the floor after school, let alone deliberately hitting someone else's car.
So in the afternoon, she was so restless that she finally dialed Ai Jingchu's phone number.
The first time I called, it rang more than ten times before being disconnected, and the voice prompt said that no one answered.
She had no choice but to put her phone away and start working.
After a few minutes, she sat back in her seat and dialed again.
This time, unlike last time, it rang three or four times and then was cut off manually.
She was stunned for a moment, listening to the busy tone in the receiver. She felt something was really wrong and worried that she had really caused him some trouble. But she was also afraid that Ai Jingchu was not convenient to answer the phone for other reasons, and it would be too abrupt for her to insist on calling him.
So, she thought about it and changed to sending text messages.
Ai Jingchu, who hung up the phone on her, was in class.
He has several classes a week specifically for undergraduates. Every Thursday afternoon, Classroom 101 on the first floor of Building 7 is always full. Considering that he is afraid of something happening at the hospital, he rarely turns off his cell phone, but only turns it to silent mode during class. Therefore, when Zeng Li called him the first time, he did not hear it.
However, he was standing on the stage, with a projection screen behind him and multimedia equipment in front of him. When the mobile phone signal came in, the speaker would make a beeping noise. At first, he thought it was a disobedient student in the front row playing with his phone. He glanced coldly at the students below and frowned unhappily.
When it rang for the second time, Ai Jingchu saw that they were all looking at him innocently, and then he realized that it was his phone that was calling. He took it out apologetically and looked at the number. The two words "Zeng Li" on it kept flashing. He hung up the phone calmly and put it on the desk.
Then, two minutes later, Zeng Li received a text message.
No police are looking for you, right
Ai Jingchu was asking a student to answer a question when he saw the screen of his mobile phone on the table light up and the text message appeared automatically. When he read these words, he immediately remembered Zeng Li's cautious look and couldn't help laughing.
The girl in the fourth row had finished answering and was standing in front of her seat waiting. Without his signal, she was too embarrassed to sit down directly, but Ai Jingchu didn't speak for a long time. After a few seconds, when Ai Jingchu frowned and looked up at the audience again, his face was clear and there was no other expression. He just said lightly: "The answer is not rigorous enough." Then he asked the students to turn to the next page and explain the case.
After making a brief summary, he raised his wrist to check his watch and said, "Take a ten-minute break."
When he said this, the students were stunned for a moment, and then they breathed a sigh of relief. They had a long class of two consecutive periods, but Ai Jingchu rarely asked them to take a break, nor did he end the get out of class early. If a student wanted to go to the bathroom, he would go out from the back by himself and not disturb the class. Today, the sun came out from the west, and Ai Jingchu actually allowed them to take a ten-minute break for the first time.
At this moment, several people rushed to the podium with books to ask questions, most of them were girls, some of them were genuinely confused, and some of them were just asking for other purposes. Ai Jingchu waved his hand to ask them to wait, then picked up the phone that was originally on the table and walked outside the classroom to answer the call.
Ai Jingchu called Zeng Li back, but she didn't hear the call and it kept ringing without anyone answering.
He had no choice but to put away his phone and move to a more secluded corner at the other end of the corridor to light a cigarette. In theory, he couldn't smoke while teaching, and he rarely did it in front of students. Teaching and educating people always requires a positive image.
When he was hiding in a corner of the stairwell, he happened to meet Ge Yi who was walking down from upstairs instead of taking the elevator.
"Senior Brother!" Ge Yi called Ai Jingchu sweetly.
Ai Jingchu had a cigarette in his mouth and was too busy to respond, so he just nodded.
"I was just looking for you," Guy said.
When Ai Jingchu saw that she had something to say, he put out the remaining half of his cigarette, walked a few steps and threw it into the trash can at the corner.
"What's the matter?" he turned around and asked.
"I revised the article I wrote last time. Can you take a look at it for me?" She was preparing for her professional title evaluation and was busy with her thesis.
"Send me an email tonight," he said.
Ge Yi wanted to say something more, but was interrupted by a group of students who had discovered Ai Jingchu's whereabouts. This was the first class of the new semester, and many people had a lot of questions to ask, so they surrounded Ai Jingchu in a hurry, leaving Ge Yi no chance to speak.
Ai Jingchu had no choice but to signal Ge Yi and took the children back to the classroom.
As long as there were genuine questions, he would answer them patiently. After a while, the ten minutes were up and he asked everyone to take their seats.
At this moment, Zeng Li, who had just gone to find a book for someone, returned to his seat and saw the missed call from Ai Jingchu.
She didn't think much about it and called him back.
"Hello." He picked up the phone.
Zeng Li heard that when he spoke there seemed to be an echo, as if it was in a very wide place.
"I was busy just now and didn't hear the phone ring. Did those two people cause you any trouble? Where are you?"
When Ai Jingchu heard Zeng Li's voice, he looked up at the more than 100 students who were returning to their seats one after another and replied, "I'm in the classroom, getting ready for class."
"Ah!" She didn't dare to say anything else and wanted to hang up the phone quickly, "Sorry! I'll call back later!"
"Zeng Li—" He stopped her in time, and his voice rose a little, attracting the students' attention.
"What?" she asked, putting the phone back to her ear.
"Neither the car nor I are in any trouble, don't worry," he said.
When he said this, his voice lowered again, slowly and deeply, as if he was whispering in his ear, so much so that the girl who was waiting beside him, ready to seize the moment to ask him the last question, felt her heart pounding.
Zeng Li's heart finally settled down, and his guilt was finally reduced by half.
In the next few weeks, Zeng Li spent them in a hurry because he had a lot of work to do and the cafe was also very busy as school had just started.
On the weekend, several friends from the website made an appointment to have dinner together, and Zeng Li brought Wu Ying, who was eating at her small snail house, along. After dinner, Ning Feng said that there were a few movie tickets left from an event held on the website, and asked if everyone wanted to go. Wu Ying loved watching movies the most, and said, "It would be a waste if I didn't watch it," and agreed immediately. So, eight or nine of them went to the theater together again.
Men sat with men, women sat with women, and Zeng Li was sandwiched between Ning Feng and Wu Ying. Halfway through the meeting, Zeng's mother called. She forgot to turn her phone to silent mode, and the ringing sound was loud, so she quickly picked up the phone.
"What happened last time? Can you at least give them a reply?" Zeng's mother asked.
"What's going on?" The movie was at a climax of the struggle between good and evil. Zeng Li was immersed in it and was a little confused by this sudden remark.
"The man your Aunt Qin introduced to you!"
"oh."
"She said she was very satisfied with you. She said she called you but the call didn't go through. It's been more than ten days. I don't know what you think."
"I'm watching a movie. Talk to you later." Zeng Li hung up the phone with a helpless look on his face.
She held the phone in her hand. At this moment, Wu Ying's drink bottle fell to the ground and rolled to Zeng Li's feet. Zeng Li bent down and picked it up for her. When she bent down, she touched the unlocked phone in her hand and accidentally dialed a number, and the number was Ai Jingchu's.
At this moment, Ai Jingchu was stuck in traffic on his way home. The weekend evening rush hour lasted much longer than usual. He didn't know if there was another car accident ahead. It was a one-way traffic, and every car was moving slowly at a snail's pace.
He noticed his cell phone ringing, glanced at the number displayed on the LCD screen on the car's center console, and then pressed the answer button on the steering wheel.
"Hello—" he said.
There is no sound over there.
After a while, he called "Hello" again, but there was still no response from the other party. Then he heard a rustling sound, like the friction of clothes.
He knew that she had called by accident. This was not the first time he had encountered such a thing, and he was almost used to it. Because his last name was quite special, starting with the letter A, it was the first contact in many people's phone books, so he would be dialed by mistake from time to time.
The car in front moved two or three meters further, and he was a little late to catch up. A taxi in the lane next to him saw that they were moving faster, so it wanted to change into his lane and get in front of him. The driver swung the steering wheel very quickly. Everyone was stuck in a traffic jam, and he was distracted while listening to the phone, and almost hit the trunk of the other car. Fortunately, he braked in time.
When he started moving forward again, he glanced at the central control screen and saw that the phone was still connected...
Zeng Li on the other end of the phone had no idea that he had accidentally made a call. He had put the phone in his coat pocket and was sharing a bucket of popcorn with Wu Ying, eating it with a crunch and enjoying himself.
On the screen, an American took a flamethrower and sprayed it at the enemy, creating a sea of fire wherever it reached, and then he threw incendiary bombs.
"When I think about how the Americans used this thing against our People's Volunteer Army, I feel it was so cruel. They didn't dare to move even if they were burned to death," said Wu Ying.
"Are you talking about Huang Jiguang?" Zeng Li said.
"Huang Jiguang was the one who blocked the bullet hole." Wu Ying said unhappily.
"Wasn't it Dong Cunrui who blocked the bullet hole?"
"Zeng Li, you are hopeless." Wu Ying rolled her eyes and said, "Our party has educated you for 16 years, but it's all in vain."
After watching the movie, Ning Feng took the initiative to send Zeng Li and Wu Ying home.
Wu Ying said, "Okay, I'm too lazy to take a taxi anyway. But I need to go to the hospital, which is not the same direction as Zeng Li's home."
Ning Feng replied: "It doesn't matter, I'll take her there first, and then you."
Zeng Li looked at Ning Feng's back and suddenly felt that she was really stupid for sitting in the middle and blocking Wu Ying's peach blossoms. This was not the first time Wu Ying had come out to eat with them, but she had never noticed it before. Wu Ying herself had a completely bewildered expression, thinking that Ning Feng really just wanted to send her home.
Zeng Li waved his hand and said, "You take Wu Ying, she needs to go to the hospital. It's more convenient for me to go home. I don't even need to reverse the bus."
She got on the bus alone, took out her cell phone to check the time, and then slowly called back Zeng's mother.
"I'm telling you, Zeng Li, today I ran into an old neighbor who said the old lady's house was going to be demolished."
"Demolition? What's the point of demolition?"
"The county is planning to build a dried tofu food industrial park, and they just happened to be requisitioning that piece of land. They are currently conducting a door-to-door survey. You'd better be careful and don't be fooled by those tricks played by the Zengs. There is not a single good person in their family. They are all eyeing your share. It's clearly your name, but they're still occupying it and refusing to give it to you. They're bullying us mother and daughter..." Zeng's mother kept talking fluently.
The old lady that Zeng's mother mentioned was Zeng Li's grandmother.
The Zeng family originally had a courtyard house in the county town, but the family was divided when the eldest uncle got married decades ago. The old lady kept a small side room for herself, and the rest was divided among the sons. Zeng Li's father did not get a share because he replaced the old man and worked in the factory.
The old lady probably always felt resentful about this, and was also worried about Zeng Li, who followed her mother to marry out. She was afraid that Zeng Li would be wronged because she had no biological father, so before she died, she asked an acquaintance and spent some money to transfer the property rights of her house to Zeng Li.
This was done without the knowledge of the other sons and daughters-in-law, and no one knew about it until the old lady passed away. At that time, there was almost a big uproar, but fortunately the truth was revealed after the funeral, otherwise the old lady would have been shaken out of the coffin to explain it clearly.
Then, the name of the house was Zeng Li’s and could not be changed, but it had been occupied by them all the time.
Even Zeng's father was unhappy, thinking that his daughter had taken the share that should have belonged to him.
Zeng's mother went to make a fuss a few times, but she was out of reach and gave up.
Seeing that Zeng's mother was about to bring up decades-old issues over the phone, Zeng Li quickly said, "Mom, the phone is running out of battery."
Zeng's mother then remembered another thing, "Hurry up and call that Gu Haidong. You are already 25 years old, and you are still complaining about this and that. What kind of person do you want to find? Think about it yourself. Don't be picky and end up picking a 'leaky lamp'. Stop while you're ahead." "Loudengzhan" is the dialect of Zeng Li's hometown, referring to a "poor quality oil lamp that leaks oil."
"I see." She didn't know if other people's mothers were like her mother and Wu Ying's mother. They used to be afraid that their daughters would fall in love, but suddenly they were afraid that their daughters wouldn't be able to get married.
"Also," Zeng's mother added, "Don't put your heart on Yu Yi. He doesn't want you anymore, and you still have the nerve to leave room for him?"
As soon as he heard Yu Yi's name, Zeng Li's eyes suddenly turned red. He stopped talking and hung up the phone without saying a word.
Afterwards, she sat in the car on the way home, holding her phone quietly, staring at the neon lights outside the window, without moving for a long time.
After a while, she calmed down and called the guy she had a blind date with last time.
The person who introduced her to the blind date was a friend of Zeng's mother, Auntie Qin, who was very fierce and could turn black into white. Everyone around her was afraid of her. Zeng Li naturally couldn't afford to offend her, so she didn't dare to neglect the blind date either.
"Hello, is this Gu Haidong? I am Zeng Li," she said.
"Ohhh, hello."
"I heard you called me a few days ago. I'm sorry I didn't answer the phone." She explained good-temperedly.
"It's okay, it's okay. Are you free now? After dinner, let's go watch a movie together?"
"I just came out of the cinema."
Gu Haidong on the other end of the phone said "Oh", and said unwillingly: "Then a cup of tea or coffee will be fine."
Zeng Li wanted to reject him directly, but thinking of Aunt Qin's tough face, she held back and answered casually, "Okay." She thought it would be better for the two of them to talk it out face to face when no one else was around.
So Zeng Li got off the bus at the next stop and took a taxi to the agreed location. When she arrived, Gu Haidong was already sitting there waiting for her.
Last time, due to the presence of their elders, the two parties only briefly exchanged glances and talked about their work and family situations, without any in-depth discussions. However, during the conversation, Gu Haidong's high profile and the self-righteousness he showed made Zeng Li feel uncomfortable.
After chatting about some random things, Gu Haidong started to get to the point.
"I heard that you have never been in a relationship. Is that true?" Gu Haidong took a sip of coffee and smiled in a gloomy way.
"Aunt Qin said that?"
“Well, you’re going to be twenty-five this year, right? Twenty-five, but you’ve never been in a relationship before, it’s a bit…” After saying that, he gave another fake smile.